The world and culture are shifting around you. And as such, the representation of that world is going to change.

Straight, cis, able-bodied, white men aren’t the only people calling all of the shots anymore. Not only are more women, people of color, LGBTQ+, and disabled people finally getting the right to tell their stories; they have also been reading, watching, and loving the same characters and worlds you have.

All we are asking is that those heroes look like us once in a while.

But why not make an original character, though, you ask. Why must you “steal” one of ours? Go get your own, you demand!

Ah, yes, why didn’t we think of that? It’s easy, right? After all, your characters seemed to spring up out of nowhere with such frequency, we should be able to do the same.

Not to mention the frequency with which these beloved, well-rounded shows with this type of casting are dropped.

I guess they gotta make way for more episodes of Iron Fist, The Ranch, and whatever else Adam Sandler can cough up.

Why aren’t more women and people of color trying to tell their own stories, you ask. Why aren’t they working hard to get in the director’s seat or behind the writing desk?

Here’s the short answer: They are.

They’re working their asses off.

They’re also being met with microagressions like “I’m pleasantly surprised you knew what you were doing,” are blamed for a variety of minor issues for the sake of being a “minority,” and fearing that if they drop any “ethnic” dialogue or bring up too many “issues,” they’ll lose the project for good.

These add up real quick and make pursuing a passion that much more exhausting and even dangerous. And it takes a special kind of strength to be willing to pursue what you love when all of that is coming at you every day.

When we get excited over a female Doctor, a woman of color being the main character in the new Star Trek, and actual Muslim women writing the story of an actual Muslim superhero, it’s not because we want to “steal” your characters for the sake of being “P.C.” We are excited, because just like you got David Tennant and 11 other men as the Doctor, and you had Captains Kirk and Picard (take your pick), we get Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor and First Officer Burnham. We get people who are like us telling stories about heroes who are like us. We have icons to admire and exonerate, whom we aspire to be one day, just as you always have.

So instead of complaining, please support us. We have good stories to tell. Heck, we even have universal stories to share, believe it or not.

Support us because you want more people to love fandom and geek culture.

Support us because stories are sacred and affect all of us in sacred ways.

Support us because we’re all a bunch of geeks who are into some crazy, weird, phenomenal stories, so we might as well enjoy them together while the rest of the world casts their judgmental looks upon our weirdness.

I got to attend a bridal shower thrown by two beloved cousins, with whom I spent some of the best moments of my childhood. My future mother-in-law and her sister met my extended family for the first time, and to my great relief, everyone got along famously.

Not to mention, my fiance and I received a vacuum, a Crock Pot, ceramic pots and pans, and other amazing gifts.

That evening, I went to my cousin Megan’s house, where we sat around a roaring fire in the fire pit, and I played with her adorable, headbutting little girl and traded silly stories and political tirades with my aunts and mother.

On Sunday, I went to my aunt Leslie’s pool, where I squeezed some swimming time in between my younger cousins’ attempts to treat me like the human equivalent of a jungle gym.

The family time and bridal celebration alone made it an incredible weekend.

The geeky celebrations that occurred alongside them made everything ten times sweeter.

The Wrinkle in Time trailer dropped and blew the world away, highlighting its beautiful cast and phenomenal story of a young girl on a journey to save her father and the universe from an evil darkness.

After several fan campaigns, the 13th Doctor is officially going to be a woman, much to the joy of many young women, the necessary feedback and critiques of women of color, and the chagrin of silly “fanboys.”

Y’all, this is an amazing week to not only be a geek, but to be a female geek.

Women of color, both young and old, dominate Madeline L’Engle’s beloved sci-fi story, which is also directed by a woman of color, the amazing Ava Duvernay, and released by Disney, which practically owns the realm of imagination right now.

An intelligent and talented woman (albeit a white, blonde, and thin one, which carries its own issues) will be embodying an immortal Time Lord/Lady who carries wisdom and knowledge of all of time and space.

After months of news stories that would tell women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and other marginalized people that there is no hope, fantasy kicked down the door, grabbed us by the hand, and took us away to worlds into which we are not only allowed to enter, but into which we are called to lead the rest of the world.

For once, I don’t care what the “haters” have to say.

The joys of being with family, of celebrating my fiance and I and our love and life together, of being a fangirl, an activist, and a seeker of the Kingdom of God broke through the despair of my anxiety, stress, and skepticism. The joy of these beautiful works of art reminded me that if neither the world nor the Church will lead us into the Kingdom of God, then maybe the imagination of sci-fi and fantasy will.

The group consists of 6 individuals: Chase Stein, the oldest and a stereotypical jock (with a penchant for lasers and vehicles) despite having mad genius parents; Alex Wilder, a lonely MMORPG lover with firm but loving parents who is considered the brains of the group; Nico Minoru, the daughter of two sorcerers who wields the Staff of One, a magical device which can do any spell but only once; Karolina Dean, a Majesdanian alien whose parents hid and suppressed her powers for her whole life; Gertrude “Gert” Yorkes, whose time-traveling parents gifted her a dinosaur with whom she shares a telepathic link; and young Molly Hayes, a precocious pre-teen mutant with the power to lift all the big things.

The series sees the teens coming to terms with their parents true selves, the motives behind their actions, familial and fraternal betrayal, coming of age without the parental guidance they expected to receive, and living with and leading each other through these difficult and new days.

It’s the perfect read for people struggling with the Church, those who have left the Church, those who are thankful they left, and those who still feel remorse over leaving.

There’s Molly Hayes, the youngest Runaway, who is perhaps the most confused over her situation. She is still in that stage of life where adults can still be trusted. She doesn’t have her house, her bed, or her parents, and while she knows they did something wrong, she never witnessed it herself, because the older kids didn’t think she could handle seeing it. She is a runaway, but a reluctant one.

There’s Chase Stein, who rather willingly abandoned his abusive household and came into his own as a member of the Runaways, providing them with a hideout (albeit it literally unstable), fighting baddies with his parents’ technology, and piloting their Leapfrog ship. Being a runaway, in some ways, saves him, and he finds a true family with the rest of the gang.

There’s Nico, Gert, and Karolina, who are aware of their families villainous ways and know they have no choice but to flee them, yet they continue to be haunted by the lives and legacies from which they left behind.

And there’s Alex, the group’s leader, who seems to easily leave his family and lead the Runaways but refuses to cast off his familial identity indefinitely, hoping instead to redeem them.

We’ve seen Big Church, the Christian Machine, act in ways they believe will save us but harm us more. And we’ve become runaways as a result.

But it’s not an easy decision to make, even if it’s a necessary one.

It’s not easy to leave our church homes, our comfy beds of unquestioning faith, the warm hugs from the Christians we love and who love us but suddenly become cold and false, the routine traditions. Sometimes, even after we’ve been gone a while, we still dream of those “good ol’ days” and want them back. Even when we understand that staying would have meant falsehood or even death, returning to business as usual is appealing. At least it meant a home was involved.

Runaway status isn’t always fun. Not having one place to call “home” can wear on you after a while. Rootlessness isn’t the safest way to live. We are creatures of habit and security, and while having nowhere to settle gives greater freedom to make nests in other places, there really is nothing or no place like home.

But Runaways reminds me that realizing the home you once loved is no longer there, and perhaps never was, can be the Good Friday which eventually moves into the Easter of finding family in the ones who have also fled.

Running away is sacred and scary. It can involve putting down roots for a time only to yank them up again. It is being honest with the beauty and the brokenness of our upbringing and figuring out what’s left to salvage. It is dropping our nets and leaving our tax collector booths like Jesus’ disciples and following the One who calls us into a new way of life, one more risky and more fantastic than we care to imagine.

Most of all, running away can remind us weare the Church, and we make home wherever we go, on the run or otherwise.

To the runaways, take comfort and know you are in good company, and even though some may say you’ve fled God, God is with you through the wilderness and in the homestead.

Also, may you find out you have an 87th-century dinosaur with whom you share a telekinetic bond. Because that would be freakin’ awesome.

As of late, fulfilling the “geeking out” part of my blog title has been difficult.

I haven’t been able to buy comic books since I can barely afford rent and food. Instead of re-reading Harry Potter, I’m reading The Hate U Give and The Autobiography of Malcolm X to wake up to the issues people of color in our country face. I also can’t binge-watch anything because I gave up Netflix for Lent, and in turn, they’re getting rid of Buffy on April 1st (seriously, God, what’s the deal with that?).

On the surface, the geeking out isn’t happening. But at the same time, it’s alive and well.

I am reading, analyzing, and studying the books on my Black Lives Matter reading list in order to better understand the pain, hope, and calls to action in these stories.

I am engaging in politics by studying legislation and political processes, and calling my representatives to attempt to engage in the conversation with them, even though this isn’t going so well with my current house rep…

I watch news stories, read commentaries, and try my best to have conversations about these passions without attempting to correct everyone on why they’re wrong.

This is where things get difficult…

Some might think calling this “geeking out” minimizes the important work being done in these movements and makes it sound more like a hobby of mine than an actual struggle in which to engage.

But it’s the best term I can think of to describe how passionate I am about engaging with this, to be as devoted as I am to my these phenomenal works of human effort in ways similar to and more dynamic than the devotion I show to most favorite and fandoms.

These are human stories and lives, and they deserve my and our fullest attention and devotion.

So geek out over politics if it makes you engage in them with thought and articulation. Geek out over social justice if it moves you into solidarity and alliances with people who want the same rights as the most privileged in our society. Talk with people about how to rewrite the damaging narratives in our society into a grand reality in which we see each other as equals and embrace our differences as things to be celebrated, not shunned.

Geek out by writing your stories of worlds only you could dream so we can see the beauty in our own world. Geek out by writing your own story to show others they do not struggle and yearn alone. Geek out by creating art which inspires us to be and do better, to give us comfort and peace in the midst of anxiety and uncertainty, to make us remember how good laughter and tears are for our souls, to put us inside the skin of another and see the world through their eyes and gain a little empathy.

Geek on, friends. We need this passion not only to survive, but to thrive.

Growing up in the Pentecostal church, I heard my church leaders say strong words against most sci-fi and fantasy media. They made their strongest objections against fantasy works that emphasized witchcraft as a plot point, especially the Harry Potter series. When I began struggling with doubts about my Christian faith, however, one of the outlets in which I found solace and even inspiration concerning faith matters was through the medium of sci-fi and fantasy media. These mediums held my questions about the universe and also offered answers and insights rooted in the spiritual world. As a result, I began to become more open to the power of the spirit world in my life and the world around me because of the space made to imagine new ways of living a life of faith as demonstrated by these shows.

One of those influential outlets was a show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This show is the story of a young woman, Buffy, who is the “chosen one,” who “alone will stand against the vampires, the demons, and the forces of darkness. She is the slayer.”1 She battles these forces of darkness, but never alone, because she has the help of her Watcher (her trainer and teacher) and her friends, the Scooby Gang. In these tales, she battles evil forces that often serve as metaphors for the trials and tribulations of adolescence and adulthood. She and her group ask existential questions, and more often than not, they do not receive black-and-white answers, which is in alignment with the very gray situations they face. Buffy questions authority and power structures that would have her conform to a patriarchal standard and even topples them. In the series finale of the show, she dismantles the greatest structure of all: the one which makes it so only one Slayer can exist. In a Pentecostal fashion, Buffy unleashes the power granted to her alone to all the potential slayers around the world. After this event, she is no longer truly alone in her destiny to battle evil. I see this as an example of Pentecost on a fantasy show which makes no significant claims to Christianity, at least in an affirming sense.

In this essay, I will explain howthe activation of all the potential slayers in the series finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is an example of Pentecost in sci-fi/fantasy media. The connections are as such: First, at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit landed on the present disciples, and in Buffy, the scythe activated potentials around the world. Second, the Holy Spirit enacted the gift of tongues to the disciples, and the power within the scythe in Buffy activated the potentials, making them true slayers and no longer only potentials. Finally, the power of the Holy Spirit ushered in the birth of the Church, while the activation of the potentials ushered in a new era of Slayers, in which many, not one, had the power.

To set up this argument, I will go back several episodes in the final season (Season Seven) and describe how these particular episodes set up the plan for the activation of all the potential slayers. In “Get It Done,” episode fifteen of season seven,2 Buffy meets the Shadow Men, who created the first Slayer and the Slayer line. The Shadow Men explain to Buffy how they infused the original slayer with a demonic essence for their strength and offer this essence to Buffy. She is preparing a small army of potential slayers3 to fight an apocalyptic battle against an entity known as the First Evil, and the Shadow Men know Buffy doubts the strength of the army and herself in defeating this enemy. However, when they try to force the entity into Buffy, she refuses and chastises them for creating the Slayer line in the first place. As the Slayer, she knows how isolating and deadly the role is, but she does not want to continue their way of doing things. To further symbolize this severing of ties with her origins, she breaks the staff through which they summoned the demon.4 Before she leaves, the Shadow Men show her a vision of the Hellmouth5 full of vampires and demons waiting to wreak havoc on Sunnydale and Buffy’s small army of potential slayers.

In episode twenty-one of season seven “End of Days,”6 which also serves as the penultimate episode of the series, Buffy finds a scythe in a vineyard guarded by the First Evil and a corrupt pastor named Caleb, who is under the First’s influence. After a brief altercation, Buffy returns home and shows it to the Scooby gang, her Watcher Giles, and fellow Slayer Faith.7 Buffy and Faith both feel an increase in strength from the scythe, and both feel that it is meant for them. Seeking more answers, Buffy returns to the vineyard and is greeted by a female Guardian, the last of a group of women who hid the scythe so a future Slayer would find it and use it for the final battle over the Hellmouth. Before Buffy can talk with her more, the Guardian is killed by Caleb, and a final battle between the two ensues.

This leads into the series finale, “Chosen.” Buffy defeats Caleb with the scythe, but she and her army still have to contend with the First Evil and its Hellmouth army. A couple of nights before their final battle, Buffy has a confrontation with the First, who, as an incorporeal being, can only take the form of people who have died. In its confrontation with Buffy, the First appears first as Caleb the preacher and Buffy herself. As Caleb, the First tells Buffy, “None of those girlies will ever know real power unless you’re dead.”8 The First then appears as Buffy and recalls the story of Slayers, reiterating that it is Buffy’s destiny to fight and even die alone. However, it is after this interaction, which is meant to shake Buffy’s confidence, that Buffy realizes an alternate plan, which she brings to the Scooby gang: her best friend Willow, a very strong Wicca, will use her magic to unleash the power of the scythe, which contains the power of the Slayer, into all of the potentials in Buffy’s army and around the world. When she shares this idea with the potentials, she speaks into the history of Slayers being alone, but in enacting this plan, she is breaking that structure in order to share her power with all potentials: “I say my power should be our power.”9 After Willow performs the spell and the potentials receive their true Slayer strength, they and their allies fight the onslaught of demons in the Hellmouth. At the end of the battle, the world is not only saved but changed, and now that she’s not the one and only chosen anymore, Buffy is left with a final question from Willow: “What are we gonna do now?”10

This unleashing of the power of the scythe in “Chosen” is a Pentecost event. At Pentecost, as recounted in Acts 2, the Holy Spirit landed on the present disciples. While they are gathered in Jerusalem, “a sound like a violent rush of wind”11 fills the place. Then “divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.”12 Upon being touched by these tongues of fire, the Holy Spirit fills them and gives them the ability to speak in other languages.13 The Holy Spirit landed on the disciples and changed them. They had taken Jesus’ command to stay in Jerusalem and wait for the Holy Spirit to come to them,14 and at Pentecost, they become empowered to spread the Gospel around the world. They are no longer in waiting but ready to act. In similar ways, the power of the Slayer within the scythe “lands on” all the potentials around the world.

In Buffy, the scythe activated potentials around the world, although the manifestation of the strength in the Slayers appeared in a different way than it did to the apostles at Pentecost. The audience first sees the power of the scythe transferring as Willow performs the spell, when “[s]uddenly, she’s overcome with power. She looks up, as the scythe and Willow start to glow with a bright white light.”15 After this scene, there is a flashback to Buffy making her speech to the potentials about her power becoming “our power.” She explains to the potentials how there is only one Slayer in each generation because “a bunch of men who died thousands of years ago made up that rule.”16 However, Buffy quickly points out that Willow is more powerful than those men ever were, and because of Willow’s magical prowess and this powerful scythe, they are going to change the rule. As Buffy’s speech continues, there are clips of young women in various scenarios: the potentials look out at the demons swarming for battle and stand taller and stronger, a young girl at bat in a baseball game starts out looking nervous then smiles confidently, a teenage girls has fallen out of her chair in school after being overcome by her new found strength, and another young woman grabs the wrist of a man trying to slap her.17 The power within the scythe has been unleashed, and the potentials around the world are no longer potentials: they are Slayers. Like the disciples, they no longer need to wait for their strength to come to them. Now, it is made manifest within them.

An obvious difference between these two scenarios is how the power is given to each group, the disciples and the potentials. In Acts, the gift of the Holy Spirit is an act of divine initiation, whereas in Buffy, the power is given by human means, or at least from a source outside of the concept of the Christian God. Willow releases the power from the scythe through the power of magic, and while in the mythology of the series this power comes from an outside source, it is initiated by Buffy, Willow, and their friends. However, in both instances, a power traditionally wielded by one or a few is now made available to many.

The Pentecost event in Acts and the Pentecost-like event in Buffy show further similarities in that both events result in theempowerment of the people affected by these manifestations. In Acts, the Holy Spirit brought the gift of tongues to the disciples. In a similar way, the power of the Slayer within the scythe in Buffy activated the potentials, making them true slayers and no longer slayers-in-waiting. The gift of tongues in Acts is a two-fold miracle:

“first, the disciples are inspired by the Holy Spirit to declare the “wonders of God” in a spiritual language that is unintelligible to human beings (i.e., glossolalia); secondly, the Jews in the crowd who represent a diverse group of countries are miraculously enabled to understand the glossolalia of the disciples so that it appears to them that the disciples are speaking in each of their own mother-tongues.”18

This manifestation of the Holy Spirit is a sign of unity for the disciples and all those who witness the event. It is also symbolic of the work which will be done to bring Gentiles and Jews into community together.

At Pentecost, diverse languages are not nullified; instead, unity occurs in the midst of a diversity of languages through the power of the Holy Spirit. According to Acts, some of the following languages present are listed in Acts 2:9-11: “Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs.”Yet in the midst of this plurality of languages and cultures, communication happens by the power of the Holy Spirit. The mission of the Church sees this unity in the midst of plurality received among diverse communities over long periods of time and in a plurality of cultural settings.”19 At Pentecost, there are multiple tongues offering praises to God, and part of the Church’s mission is to continue bringing different peoples of various languages and cultures together to offer such praises.

A Pentecost-like unity occurs in Buffy, but the unity occurs in a sharing of power instead of a sharing of languages. In “Chosen,” Buffy defies both her own supernatural origins and a common theme in superhero tales: only one person can save the world. Instead, she insists “my power should be our power.”20 According to Buffy’s wish, Willow is able to “transfer Buffy’s power to all the potential slayers in the world… [and commence] a religious power that is furthermore disconnected from patriarchy and clearly defined as female.”21 The once-potentials receive the fullness of their powers and are able to fight against the evil entities within the Hellmouth and close this Hellmouth for good. A new line of Slayers begins, in which power is shared by all who are chosen to wield the power instead of a lone warrior.

This unity of power is similar to the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, because in a supernatural event, a transference of power is made from one person to many. At Pentecost, the promised Spirit arrives and anoints the disciples for their mission, empowering them to be Christ’s body on earth. This is the arrival of the Great Counselor, who will guide them in all things after Jesus’ ascension.Since Pentecost, Christians have been able to follow Christ because of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Likewise, when Willow’s spell releases the power of the scythe and gives that power to the potentials, all women who can be slayers become slayers. The power resting within them becomes real.

Once these manifestations of power occur, from the Holy Spirit and the scythe, a new era begins in each of these stories. The power of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost ushered in the birth of the Church. The activation of the potentials ushered in a new era of Slayers, in which many, not one, had the power.

Pentecost is often described as the birthday of the Church. This event was the result of Jesus’ promise to send the Spirit to the disciples if they waited in Jerusalem. The fact that they both waited in Jerusalem and then left to begin the ministry of the Church is significant in itself. Instead of keeping the disciples in Jerusalem, the center of Judaism, Pentecost “leads away from Jerusalem, to a missionary movement scattered to “the ends of the earth;” it decenters (or, at least, portends the decentering of) Jerusalem as the locus of divine worship.”22 The Holy Spirit is not a dormant creature willing to let the disciples remain within the familiarity of Jerusalem. Instead, similar to how it drove Jesus into the wilderness, the Holy Spirit guides the disciples to the Gentiles. In this way, “Pentecost constitutes…a criticism of an ethics of election focused on the privileged place of those who claim by birth to be descendants of Abraham.”23 With the Holy Spirit, any barriers between different peoples are dissolved, but their differences are not nullified. Instead, the different people and cultures are brought together in the Church by the Holy Spirit’s power to bridge communication and cultural gaps. As a result, Pentecost is also “at least an implicit critique of Rome, whose imperial destiny (so it was said) was to “form one body under the name of Romans.””24 The Church is being formed in the image of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, not in the image or by the power of any one nation or people.

Since the Holy Spirit is forming the Church into Christ’s body on earth, the Spirit is also at work empowering the individuals within the Church to be made in the image of Christ. The gift of tongues is a significant sign of this power. The outpouring of the Spirit makes the Church possible “not by the dissolution of multiple languages but rather by embodiment in a people generated by the Spirit, gathered in the name of Jesus Christ.”25 By maintaining unity in diversity, the Holy Spirit is able to form different individuals into Christ’s image without negating what makes people unique. Pentecost also serves as the fulfillment of Moses’ wish that “all the Lord’s people were prophets” (Num. 11:29; cf. Joel 2:28-29/Acts 2:17-18) and, as such, represents an equipping of the church for its divinely appointed mission.”26 Peter explains in Acts 2:14-26 how the Law and Prophets foresaw this outpouring of the Spirit and the universality of the Spirit’s influence. This is especially evident in Peter’s use of Joel 2:28, in which young and old, and male and female, will receive the Spirit and prophesy freely. This empowerment of the Holy Spirit in bringing unity in language and prophecy equips the Church to be Christ’s body in the world.

As the Holy Spirit brought forth the era of the Church, so too did the unleashing of the scythe’s Slayer power usher in a new era of Slayers. Buffy and Faith are no longer the only Slayers in the world. Now, they can share their power with every woman destined to be a Slayer. This sharing of power is a significant tool of empowerment, especially for heroines. Most heroines experience three character traits: “Firstly, sacrificial heroines are made to feel guilty of their positions as heroines. Secondly, they are made to want to give back their power. Finally, the only possible community for them is a patriarchal one.”27 By sharing her power, Buffy subverts these tropes. She no longer feels guilty about her power, she does not want to give it up, and with Willow’s help, she creates a matriarchal community centered on power-sharing instead of power-hoarding.

The activation of all Slayers empowers the Slayers as individuals and as a community. The images of the young women receiving their powers during Buffy’s speech shows empowered individual women. The final battle demonstrates what this empowerment looks like in a communal sense. The potentials have a legitimate chance at helping Buffy and Faith, because they are equal to them in strength. Previous episodes saw a deterioration of community, but coming around this plan and receiving power from the scythe united Buffy’s army. There is no longer only one, nor is there only two, to bear the weight of the world. The activation gives the chance for anyone who can be a Slayer to be a Slayer.

It is important to notice the Christian story in different genres of media, because Christians need to be reminded that media influences our culture, Christian or otherwise. I chose the medium of Buffy the Vampire Slayer for its spiritual elements and because of the Pentecost event in the series finale. Making these connections between biblical text and popular culture helps Christians to better understand the demographics and language of our culture, because in order to understand the people not in the Church, it is first important to understand the stories that influence them.

The Church needs to continue noticing and embracing these themes of empowerment, in both the biblical story and stories in popular culture, because the Church is in a world full of people who are oppressed and disempowered. Pentecost, the birthday of the Church, is a day about empowerment by the Holy Spirit to become a new people bringing to life a new kingdom. “Chosen” is the conclusion to a story about female empowerment, a story that needs to be told more often in a world which regularly oppresses women. The Church needs both of these stories about sharing power instead of hoarding it, because in the gift of the Holy Spirit, Jesus said to disciples past and present, “My power should be our power.”

2Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “Get It Done,” UPN, February 18, 2003, written and directed by Douglas Petrie.

3 In the “Buffyverse,” as it is called by fans, the potential slayers are girls chosen by Fate to become the Slayer when the previous Slayer dies.

4Sofia Sjo, “Are Female Messiahs Changing the Trick? Women, Religion, and Power in Popular Culture and Society,” in Reconfiguration: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Religion in a Post-Secular Society ed. by Stefanie Knauss and Alexander D. Ornella, (Krotenthallergasse: LIT Verlag),2007, 70.

5 In the “Buffyverse,” the Hellmouth is the opening to the barrier between Earth and hell dimensions, which makes it a natural home to many of the demons and evil forces against which Buffy fights.

6Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “End of Days,” UPN, May 13, 2003, written by Douglas Petrie and Jane Espenson, directed by Marita Grabiak.

7 Traditionally, only one Slayer can be active at a time. However, upon Buffy’s brief death in “Prophecy Girl (Season 1, Episode 12), another Slayer, Kendra, was activated (Season 2, Episodes 9 and 10). After Kendra is killed in “Becoming, Part I” (Season 2, Episode 21), Faith was activated and became part of the series in “Faith, Hope, and Trick” (Season 3, Episode 3).

8Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “Chosen,” UPN, May 20, 2003, written and directed by Joss Whedon.

When I first walked into a comic book store two and a half years ago, I went straight for the Marvel section to grab Ms. Marvel Issue 1 (2014).

I knew nothing about Carol Danvers. I barely knew anything about Kree or Inhumans.

But I knew about Kamala Khan, the second-generation, Pakistani-American, Muslim teenager who carried the title of the super-heroine Ms. Marvel.

Kamala’s run as Ms. Marvel, previously portrayed as the blonde-haired, blue-eyed Carol Danvers, began in February 2014. While she isn’t the first Muslim superhero in the Marvel universe, she is the first to have get her own solo title and story.

When I found this out, I wanted to read her story, which sounded interesting and exciting on its own.

Thankfully, I’ve also heard many in my own Christian circle strive to be more open to, inclusive of, and engaged with those they call “our Muslim brothers and sisters.” I appreciate and affirm these efforts and encourage all of my Christian friends to continue them.

But the term “our Muslim brothers and sisters” is not just a phrase to me or a call to go out of my way to interact with this group as if I can avoid them.

Muslims are my actual brother, sister, father, stepmom, and half of my extended family. They are my flesh and blood.

And that is why Ms. Marvel is so important to me.

This is a female American Muslim who is a person, not a token or a poster child. She is a teenager who goes to school, fights with her parents and brother, attends the mosque, quotes the Quran in the name of justice, and is obsessed with the Avengers. She also messes up often: she falls for a boy who hurts her, takes her best friend for granted, and is betrayed by her idol. She is a character whose ethnicity and religion is incorporated into “the larger, more holistic representation of what it is to be a person.”

Kamala isn’t just a girl who happens to be Muslim AND a superhero. Her identity and ideas about justice flow from her religious faith and family heritage. She rebukes the stereotype of Muslim women being oppressed and passive. Instead, she is physically, mentally, and emotionally strong with similar limits as other superheroes. Her religion does not hold her back. It pushes her forward.

Kamala Khan’s Ms. Marvel is an important icon in an age when people are calling out inherent racism in our media, from movements like #OscarsSoWhite and backlash against whitewashing characters who should be portrayed by people of color. She is a breath of fresh air in a storm of common negative media narratives surrounding Muslim Americans, including, but not limited to, threats of ISIS within and outside US; the Boston Marathon, San Bernardino, and Pulse Nightclub attacks; and Ahmed Mohamed’s arrest for building a clock his teacher suspected of being a bomb. She is someone that can represent my siblings, parents, and family well, someone to remind them that they are good, beautiful, whole people just as they are, with their dark, curly hair, large brown eyes, and olive skin. They are not tokens or terrorists. They are people with stories similar to and different from Kamala’s, and their stories are worth telling and upholding. This is what Ms. Marvel’s story says to my family and other Muslim Americans.

When people of color and from minority groups demand better representation, it isn’t a whiny demand from brats who just “want everything their way.” It’s a call to acknowledge a broad range of people as complete, complex human beings in the same way so many white, hetero, cis, Christian, and able-bodied people already are. It is a plea to notice and honor the divine humanity of brown, black, and Muslim (among other people groups) in realistic, well-rounded, and accurate ways.

In short, it is a cry for justice.

So broaden your horizons. Not all of the media you consume should be headlined by people who look like and have similar backgrounds and lifestyles as you. If you’re Christian, find some stories from Muslim, Hindu, or even atheist perspectives. If you’re white, read the stories of black and brown characters (even better, get stories like those written BY people of color). If you’re able-bodied, seek the stories of people with disabilities. The point is, don’t limit your stories. Seek all of them from as many perspectives as possible. Recognize the divine humanity in each diverse story. If you’re a creator, make sure if your characters are people of color or different religions that you do your homework well in bringing them to life. Make sure they are real people whose ethnicity and religious beliefs add to their character instead of forcing them into a stereotype.

This is important, holy work, friends, and it is hard work. We won’t always say the right things or portray people as well as we could. We will blunder. I know I have many times.

But know that this is work for justice. This work of honoring stories honors the beautiful humanity within each person, including my own family. And we need this work to be done now more than ever.

Because the world around me felt so apocalyptic, and she seemed to be the best one to handle such a situation.

I mean “apocalyptic” in every sense of the word. I mean it in that it feels like the world around me is about to change significantly, or even end as I know it. But mostly, I say “apocalyptic” because of what this election season has uncovered and revealed.

That’s the real meaning of apocalypse in Greek: “to uncover/to reveal.” If you think about it for a moment, it makes complete sense that this is the word we would also use to describe world-altering/ending events.

Look at what is uncovered when the world starts shifting and the dust is shaken off. We see the cracks in our systems and how they are closer to toppling over than we expected. We notice the people upon whose backs those systems were built, the ones who have always known the truth about how the world works, but we have been too preoccupied and privileged to notice. We see the darkness which permeates it all, and it is frightening.

Apocalypse is not a new cultural phenomenon. We see it in everything from The Hunger Games and The Maze Runner to The Walking Dead. It’s as if something in our collective psyche has sensed this cosmic shift just waiting to happen, and our imaginations ran with it.

Here we are, on the cusp, perhaps already falling over, and I am looking for everything to hold onto.

Enter Buffy, the Queen of Apocalypses. (The plural is necessary)

In season one, Buffy resists the Master, an ancient vampire who seeks to rule the human world, and after dying briefly at his hands, Buffy destroys him. In season two, Buffy’s beau Angel loses his soul, tries to destroy her life AND the world, and she has to avert the damage by killing him (after he becomes good again). In season three, the town mayor turns into an all-powerful, giant demon snake on graduation day to usher in a new world order before Buffy’s gang and the senior class blow him up. Season four sees the gang taking down a corrupt government organization whose creation tries to create monster-human hybrids, season five sees the gang battling a chaos-seeking god, season six tackles the apocalyptic desires of regular humans and Buffy’s own friend, and season seven concludes the series with a final confrontation with the First Evil.

And those are just the season finales.

So when things feel apocalyptic, I turn to Buffy, because she knows how to handle these situations. Apocalypses don’t break her but push her into leadership. They turn some of her enemies into reluctant heroes and make heroes out of her “ordinary” friends. In Buffy, as in life, apocalypses have the capacity to unbalance power. They can enable people in power to grab more of it, or give the underprivileged and marginalized a chance to finally have a taste of it. Buffy and her gang work hard to make sure the power stays out of the hands of those who would do great harm with it and instead put it in the hands of those deemed less worthy.

This is part of God’s story, too. In the Revelation from John, apocalyptic imagination runs wild. There’s fantastic imagery and symbols, which represent the corruption of empire, the oppression of others, and the love of God finally putting this evil to rest. There is an ushering out of the old ways of power to give cataclysmic birth to a new way of life. This final “uncovering” reveals the powers of the world as they are, in all of their atrocities and corruption, and the revealing of the world as it was meant to be, ruled by God through Jesus, with restored communion and relationship, and tears wiped away. This is the day when heaven comes to earth, and evil is forever banished from it.

So what do we do when it seems like the Hellmouth has opened, and demons are spewing out?

What do we do with a promise for all weeping to cease when we can’t stop the tears from flowing night and day?

That’s what we’re grappling with now. For those of us who have had the blind removed from our eyes and the carpet pulled out from under, the initial revelation is shocking and horrifying. When we see, as Richard Rohr describes it, that “[our] leaders…mirror what we have become as a nation. They are our shadow self for all to see,” the sight is not a pretty one. It is a terror, perhaps the kind which God described to Jeremiah when foretelling Jerusalem’s destruction, a terror repulsive to the world but to which a majority of the citizens remained blind.

Apocalypses render the world bare. They wipe the collective slate clean. Things can begin anew. These are times for pain, despair, trial, resistance, upheaval, and change, all to make way for a new way of life, closer to the way it was meant to be.

So now, with the Hellmouth open and an apocalypse underway, we continue to do Buffy’s work.

We live as Slayers and Scoobies in this apocalyptic age. We resist, uncover, and unmask evil and corrupt systems to reveal what they are to the world. We resist by protesting, creating art, being with people on the margins and offering them our encouragement, listening ears, and assistance in their movements. We start bringing about the final revelation every day.

Apocalypses happen, more often than we realize and more often than we may want. But they give us opportunities: to upset structures, to usher in a new and more just era, to take power from the powerful and give it to the disenfranchised.